Community rallies for beloved father of 5 battling heart disease

BERKLEY, Mich. (FOX 2) - "I kept telling myself, 'Tomorrow I'm going to go to the doctor,'" said David Schmidt.

Schmidt told his wife, colleen, he just wasn't feeling well last week.

"Friday morning I woke up and convinced myself not to go to the doctor - because that's what I do," he said.

Instead, he ended up at urgent care - and then - in the hospital.

"They brought up heart three or four times - I kept telling them my heart's fine - don't worry about that," he said.

After all - David is only 48 - a floor installer by day, baseball coach and president of the Berkley Dads' Club in his spare time. He's a husband and father of five boys with another baby just weeks away - he's a busy guy.

"So then they ran a bunch of tests on me and they asked if I had a heart attack and I said I don't even know what you're talking about," he said. "Of course I didn't have a heart attack - I have a cold. And I was still in a rush to get going and they discovered that my heart was only working at about 15 percent."

"They said if he had gone to work and to coach baseball after - he would not have made it home," said his wife. Colleen.

David is in heart failure - and doctors say it's likely because a virus was attacking his heart, a result of what seemed like a mild case of Covid over the winter.

"Looking back on it, I never felt the same after that - I kind of just felt run down and constantly had what I thought, was a cold," he said.

Now he's on a bunch of medications - and being monitored with a portable defibrillator.

"For three months he's really not going back to work at all," Colleen said.

And in three weeks, they're having another baby boy - Frankie -  the latest addition to the 'Schmidty Committee'  with brothers Will, Sammy, Mikey, Tommy and Louie.

It's a lot to handle, which is why their baseball family has started a GoFundMe - already raising close to $30,000 to help them get through the next few, uncertain months.

"Just really touching to have the community support us the way they have in our village," Colleen said. "It's humbling and it's just really touching how people have responded."

Coach David says he does realize he has to slow down a little - but he was still at practice Thursday and says he won't miss game day Saturday.

"Will has a baseball game tomorrow and I'm going," he said.

"To sit - he will not be on the field coaching," Colleen added.

"I'm here to live. I want to see my kids play, I want to be there. When I make a commitment to somebody I want to say I did it," David said.

For his baseball family - but especially for this family - health has to be the top priority right now, there's just too much to live for.

"Long term, right? I want to be here for my boys," he said.

If you would like to donate to the Schmidt family's GoFundMe, GO HERE.